The Gulf Cooperation Council's summit of six member states opened in Riyadh Sunday as Saudi Arabia faces international pressure over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman opened the gathering, urging fellow member states Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to maintain a united front against Iran.
"This requires all of us to maintain our countries' gains and to work with our partners to preserve security and stability in the region and the world," he said.
Bahrain and Qatar traded barbs over the Qatari emir's decision not to attend the summit, an absence that suggests that the rift between Qatar and three Gulf states is unlikely to be resolved soon.
Instead, Qatar sent its foreign minister to the annual one-day summit, which is overshadowed by the economic and diplomatic boycott Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have maintained against Qatar since mid-2017 over allegations that the emirate supports terrorism – charges it denies –as well as over Qatar's ties with Iran.
"Qatar's emir should have accepted the fair demands [of the boycotting states] and attended the summit," Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al Khalifa tweeted.
Ahmed bin Said Al-Rumaihi, director of the information office at Qatar's Foreign Ministry, responded, "Qatar can make its own decisions and attended [last year's] Kuwait summit while the leaders of the boycotting countries did not."
Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, said, "We call for an end to media campaigns [in the region] that have crossed the lines that encroached on our values and principles, planting the seeds of sedition amongst our sons, seeking to destroy every building we have built."
